Happy Mondays promotes first album in 15 years · 2007-03-28 13:55
Early Nineties chart stars the Happy Mondays have announced a series of small-scale UK concerts to promote their first album in 15 years.
The Manchester act, led by singer Shaun Ryder, plays 10 dates in May and June.
The line-up will feature two other original members – dancer Bez, who won Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, and drummer Gary Whelan.
Happy Mondays’ hits included Step On and Kinky Afro. The band reunited for concerts in 2000 and 2004.
Their last album of new material was 1992’s Yes Please, while there have been subsequent greatest hits releases, BBC informs.
Along with The Stone Roses, the band were at the forefront of the “Madchester” scene that briefly dominated UK indie music in the late 80s and early 90s.
Ryder and Bez also had success in the mid-90s with the band Black Grape, producing hits including In the Name of the Father and Kelly’s Heroes.
The title of Black Grape’s 1995 album, It’s Great When You’re Straight…Yeah! alluded to Ryder’s long-term problems with drug addiction.
A spokesman for the new tour said Ryder was now “clear of the drugs that have monopolised his life for so many years”.
The singer had “found a new kind of high in the form of exercise”, he said.
But the spokesman added: “Despite this new-found lifestyle Shaun’s lyrics remain true to the title of modern-day poet, still displaying street savvy and cartoon lyrics delivered in the true deviant style his fans love him for.”
The Happy Mondays will debut their new material next month at the Coachella music festival in California, US.
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